


What Makes Men Mad

by luckbringer



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Madness, Pain, Rage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-15 16:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2235414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckbringer/pseuds/luckbringer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though he appears calm on the outside, he can feel his protective walls crumbling inside of him. It won't be long before he breaks... A look at two missing, post-Doomsday scenes, and a glimpse into the madness of a grief-stricken Time Lord. Rated T for anger, rage, violence, sorrow, and mild blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> No description needed. We all remember this scene…

Everything felt like it was in slow motion, as if the world had been thrown into limbo in a matter of seconds. Just a few, heart-stopping seconds. Because those seconds were the amount of time it took for Rose to leave his life for good and ever.

He liked to think that he could feel her through the white wall of the Torchwood building. He imagined that she was on the other side, as shocked and devastated as he felt right then. He even wondered if she was in the same position as him, one hand on the wall, and half of his face pressed into the cement like he wanted to sink into it. Or pass through it. Maybe a little of both. It should have been him, he thought. He should have been the one to fall. He should have tried to protect her better. He never should have let her stay. She was everything to him, and he had failed her when it mattered most.

But his restless mind drove him to drop his hand in defeat and turn away from the wall, hands in his pockets now that there was no one to hold them. He fiddled with some of the computers, but nothing happened. He hadn't really been expected anything. The walls were closed once again and he had won. Victorious at last.

If this was what victory felt like…no. This wasn't a victory. Maybe for Earth, and this universe, but not for him.

The Doctor didn't stop his feet as they carried him towards the exit. He had to get out of Torchwood before the authorities showed up and started asking questions. Because they would want him to go back into that room with the white wall and give them every detail, and that would be impossible in his current state. The Doctor mutely congratulated himself on not breaking down yet, but the crash was inevitable. He could feel the wall surrounding his grief splintering with each step. Wouldn't be long now…

He ran to the TARDIS as soon as he hit the ground level, bypassing the police cars and UNIT trucks without even a curious glance. The last part of his mind that was still sane heard someone calling his name, but he slammed the door of the police box closed with such a slam he made the windows rattle. He tripped over his feet in his haste to get back into the time vortex and away from the planet where everything had stopped.

Then he exploded.

The Doctor screamed at the top of his lungs. He cursed every god and every devil that had ever existed, even the ones that hadn't. He shouted at the TARDIS for not warning him, and kicked the console in anger when his ship tried to calm him with her melody. He ignored the pain in his foot and instead did the only thing he knew how to do: run. He ran through the halls of the TARDIS, not caring that the sentient ship was making it so that he was running in circles. He kept passing three rooms: his bedroom, Ro—her bedroom, and the library. The first was a place where he'd had panic attacks before and had no wish to relive the experience. The second was downright unthinkable, especially in his current state. Though his mind was decimated by the screams echoing in his own ears, he knew that he would never forgive himself if he destroyed the last remnant of Ro—her.

So on the next pass, the Doctor fled into the library.

He stopped in the doorway, his breath heavy and his mind spinning. He had to get her back. He had to. There must be some way to get into parallel worlds! The Doctor rushed to the nearest shelf and tore it apart. With some books he barely glanced at the title before tossing it over his shoulder. Others he looked at, grunted in approval, and tossed into a separate stack.

The Doctor continued to scavenge through his library's shelves until each and every book was picked clean. A vast majority were clumped against the walls, lying where they had been thrown only minutes previously. And others, the Doctor happened to notice, looked to have been torn or damaged in other ways. Had he done that? He must have. Those had been Rose's favorites, and they still had her scent in their pages. He couldn't tell: was that a curse or a blessing?

The Doctor turned away from his battered collection and stalked towards the tower of scientific textbooks and guides. All of them talked about space or time travel in one form or another, and were his best hope at trying to find something about parallel worlds. The TARDIS hummed in his ears again, but he threw up his mental barriers and began to read.

His mind was still so crazed that he could make no use of his time sense. He had no way to measure the passage of time except through the number of books he read. But the words were not telling him what he needed to know, and each book that didn't help him joined the discard pile behind him.

Traveling through space is a difficult task in of itself, but it must be said that such traveling can only take place in a single dimension. It is impossible to access…

No Time Lord has ever successfully traveled between dimensions since the barriers between worlds were established…

…not safe, unadvisable, and extremely unlikely to ever reach another universe…

…are advised not to attempt this…

…dangerous, unreliable…

…impossible…

"NO!" The Doctor shouted out in anger and glared at the book in his hand, the last one in his stack that had had a chance at telling him the answers. Exploring Space: a Cautionary Tale of the Next Dimension, it read in gold letters. How ironic. He went to throw it, but then he remembered going to Scotland with Rose, and being trapped by a werewolf. He had told her that books were the best weapon in the world, that they would solve all their problems. He told her so many things, that he would keep her safe, that nothing was impossible…

Simply throwing that book was too good for it, the Doctor decided. Instead, he grabbed at the spine and tore it down the middle, shredding it to bits and crying out in joy at the sight of its mangled cover and dislocated pages. By the time he actually hurled the book at the wall, the only thing left to make contact was half of its hard cover. The rest of the book was scattered around his feet.

But then the Doctor looked up, and he saw it. The Wall. It was here, in his library, just sitting there like it hadn't ruined his existence by taking away the one being in all of creation who had made him truly happy. Had it always been there? Yes, his mind answered him, it had, because there was one of the massive bookcases lying on the floor. Each case was tall enough to reach the ceiling, but in his mad rage he had managed to push it over. He had been reading on top of its cracked wood and had never even noticed.

The Wall was still there, mocking him, and the Doctor tripped over the bookcase in an effort to reach it. This time, he'd break it down. He'd tear it apart and yank Rose back to his side, consequences be damned. His throat was raw from screaming but he just couldn't stop, and though he could see his fist pounding against the white wall, and hear his nails scrape along its surface, he could feel nothing but the rage and adrenaline pounding through his system. He was babbling now, in every language he knew, and his words weren't making sense. One minute he was apologizing to her, and the next he was pleading with the Fates to let him have one more chance with her. One more adventure with Rose Tyler by his side. Just one.

How could the universe do this to him? After all he'd done for every planet and solar system and living creature out there? Was this his reward? To have Rose taken from him when he had been so close to telling her…

Suddenly thinking these thoughts wasn't enough.

"IT'S NOT FAIR!" He screamed to the wall, to the TARDIS, to the universe, to the woman he…loved now trapped a dimension away. Because now he felt the words rising up in his throat, ready to burst forth in a multitude of noise and emotion. But it was too late, she would never hear them, she would never know…never, not ever.

Somewhere in his madness the Doctor had lost the ability to hold himself up, and he had collapsed against the wall. His forehead rested against the hard cement, and his fist was up against the wall, gripping some invisible thing and holding on to it with all of his strength. He couldn't help but wonder if his fist was somehow clutching his last bits of sanity. Was he losing it? Had he finally cracked? Was this the end?

The tears didn't come soon enough, and when they did, they were loud and messy and filled with disgusting hiccups. He might have described his emotional release as pathetic, and useless, and completely un-Time Lord, but he didn't care. It was only then that the Doctor relinquished the hold on his mental walls and allowed the TARDIS to fill his broken mind with her reassuring hum.

"She's gone," he whispered, more to himself than anything. Then he said to the TARDIS, in a louder voice, "She's gone and I couldn't save her."

The ship's lights dimmed and he silently thanked her for that. It was easier to cry in the dark than out in the open.

"What do I do?" He whispered. But the TARDIS gave no reply. "What am I supposed to do now?" He repeated. "How can I just go back to how things were and not remember—" His breath hitched and he choked out a gasp. "Rassilon, am I pathetic. I couldn't even say three bloody words to her. And now I'll never have the chance."

Another hum, and he could hear the click of the library door opening. The TARDIS wanted him to leave.

"But…not yet." The Doctor struggled to his feet and put his back against the Wall. Oh, how he hated that Wall, but right now it felt like the closest connection he had to his lost companion. The companion who was far more than that. "Just a few minutes. Please."

But the ship thrummed in increasing volumes until the Doctor finally nodded and muttered, "Okay." He turned and glided his fingers along the cement until his hand finally fell away from the Wall. Without another word or sorrowful glance, the Doctor stumbled over the mess he had created and escaped the room.

He found himself back in the console room, and out of habit, he nearly said, "Where to next?" But he held his tongue just in time and bit back any more emotional outbursts. Then he realized that the TARDIS was still humming incessantly, and the Doctor happened to glance at the monitor. It showed the view from the outside: a star was sitting in in space. He could tell that it was near the end of its life, but had enough power to…

No. Could he? Oh, he could! The Doctor felt his mouth turn up in a fleeting smile, and he dashed around the console. Every flick of the switch increased the ship's hum, until he could practically feel the TARDIS' extra energy surging from the dying star and into its core. If he was right, in a few moment there would be just enough power to…

"Thank you," he told the TARDIS. And he pulled the lever.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months have passed and Martha has begun to adjust to the Doctor, the TARDIS, and the wild life she now leads. Until now. This takes place sometime after "42".

Martha blinked her eyes open and stared into the darkness of her room for a few moments, trying to figure out what had woken her up. It made her chuckle to realize that her first assumption was that the Doctor had managed to break something. Or, on a more somber note, perhaps they were under some kind of attack.

Then she heard the noise again: a crash that reverberated through the walls of her room on board the TARDIS.

She gasped and sat up quickly, but froze before attempting to get off her bed. Silence followed the crash, but not the kind Martha was used to. Something was missing…then she realized. Since coming on board Martha had been aware of a faint hum that drifted in and out of her conscious while on board the sentient ship. But now that hum was gone, shut off somehow, and it made even her room seem unnaturally still.

When another noise, a bang this time, reached her ears, Martha jumped off her bed and quickly slipped on a pair of comfortable slippers. She was out the door before her mind had even caught up with what she was doing.

Martha paused in the middle of the TARDIS hallway and blinked away the ship's bright lights. Silence still permeated the halls, making her feel very exposed while clothed in just her cotton jimjams and slippers. But before she could doubt her judgment, the sound of breaking glass, followed by an unearthly scream, came from her right side. She ran towards the sound.

The TARDIS must have shifted her rooms again, because as soon as Martha turned the corner she came upon a large, ancient-looking door, opened just a crack. It was the door leading to a room she had much of her time perusing for human and alien medical texts. Of course, Martha also knew it to be a place the Doctor sometimes disappeared into for days at a time, locking the door and not returning until she was practically threatening to attempt to fly the ship herself. Why the library? She wondered, before she was startled by a series of slams. Someone was pounding something with all their strength.

Though her hum was still silenced, the TARDIS mentally nudged Martha forward. The ship knew what—no, who—was in there, and he needed someone. Someone the TARDIS couldn't be.

Slowly, Martha opened the door.

Whatever she had been expecting, it was not the scene in front of her. The library she had learned to call a safe haven had been turned upside down and torn apart. The decimated remains of thousands of books, papers, and manuscripts littered the wooden floor, smothering a lump that she assumed by its placement was the remnants of her favorite reading sofa. Two of the ceiling-high bookcases that usually lined the walls had been pushed over in such a way that they leaned against the other at an angle. It looked as if the cases would fall to the unforgiving floor if anyone so much as breathed on them. The cumbersome desk, which had strange markings curved into its wooden surface, was still present in the center of the room, but the remains of a smashed wooden chair surrounded it like a halo. A flurry of papers still shook on top of the desk, as if a tornado had recently blown through and ripped them all to shreds.

And just beyond the desk, up against a wall, was the tornado himself. He was on the ground, facing a large wall that was completely white all the way up to the ceiling. Martha had never given it much though before, besides the fact that it was nothing like the coral wall segments surrounding it. Now she wondered if it held some deeper meaning beyond her comprehension.

Over the deafening silence she heard the Doctor muttering to himself in a voice that was so soft it was almost inaudible. His back was to her, but she could practically feel the haggardness that plagued him, the same desperation that sometimes appeared in his eyes when certain words, people, or places were mentioned. Martha had always known, or at least assumed, the Doctor to be a man of class and youthful sophistication. Now she saw his pinstripe suit riddled with holes and tears.

She was frozen in surprise, and more than a little bit of fear, in front of the library door, her hand still grasping its handle as if it wanted to slam the door shut and run from whatever had happened, or was happening, here. But then she heard the repeated pounding, and she saw where it was coming from. Doctor Martha kicked in the second she noticed that there were bloody fist prints on the wall.

Martha tripped and stumbled her way over to the Doctor, not caring how much noise she was making. He didn't turn and continued to pound his right fist against the cement wall, and with each contact the right side of his hand made a bloody mark on the wall. Its scarlet sheen stood stark against the whiteness of the wall, and dribbled down its surface and the Doctor's arm steadily, but he took no notice of it. If Martha were to question him in that moment he would probably claim he felt no pain.

She quickly realized that being closer to the Doctor did not make his state of health, physical or mental, any better. When Martha kneeled beside him she could smell something acidic, presumably his blood, and realized that there was more of it covering his suit jacket. How long had the Doctor been in here? She wondered. His mumblings seemed to become more incoherent now that she was beside him, and when she reached her hand out, he visible flinched away from her touch.

"Doctor…" Martha said quietly, in as soothing a voice as she could manage. A difficult thing to do when she was becoming more frightened by the minute.

The Doctor emitted a small noise she couldn't identify. She caught a brief word here and there. "No…" he hissed. Then his voice shifted and he began to whimper. "Please, please, no…not her, take me, take me, let her go…not fair…I'm sorry, please, I…"

It was about her. Martha chided herself. She should have guessed sooner. If the Doctor wasn't feeling joy at some moment, it was grief. There was no in between, though the last of the Time Lords seemed quite capable of jumping between the two with ease. But Martha had never seen him this devastated, except for that morning, on a ship about to crash into a burning sun…an image of a vulnerable, terrified Doctor flashed into Martha's mind, but she pushed it aside. "Doctor, please," she continued, "At least…let me see your hand."

He froze, and Martha stopped breathing. Was he finally coming back to his senses? She had heard cases of deranged patients coming out of their "episodes" disoriented, sometimes afraid, and fear made anyone capable of unimaginable things. One of the lessons med school drilled into Martha and her classmates was to never handle a mentally-compromised person alone. There'd been too many reports of patients advertently or inadvertently killing their doctors.

With this in mind, Martha braced herself when she saw the Doctor's shoulder muscles tense. Then, ever so slowly, his right fist separated from the wall with a sickening smack, like a suction cup, and drifted to the floor.

"Thank you," Martha whispered quickly, before she gently picked up his hand and uncurled his fist. At her touch the Time Lord hissed in pain.

"Sorry." But she wasn't finding it in her to be compassionate at the moment. The source of the blood was coming from a long gash in his hand, and it was then that Martha remembered the sounding of breaking glass from before. Now she could hear her slippers crunching on glass shards.

"I…" The Doctor swallowed, but kept his forehead on the wall, like he had become part of its white surface. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

She could have given him a glare her mum would have been proud of, but she held her tongue when she remembered the shouting and screams from earlier. With a few tears of her dirtied and bloodied jimjams she was able to make a sufficient binding. "You scared me."

He swallowed and blinked heavily. Martha could have sworn that she saw a tear splash on the wooden floor. "I'm sorry for that. And, well, everything," he said slowly. He bit back another hiss as she wrapped the cotton around his injured hand. "I must have fallen asleep."

"Oh." Was that sleeping for him? No wonder Martha had never hear him utter the words "I'm off to bed" or show any signs of being tired. He would've desecrated the whole TARDIS if he dared to try and get some shut-eye every night.

When she was finished wrapping the makeshift bandage she sat back on her heels, watching as he rubbed his right fingers together. She could barely hear his mumbled, "Thanks."

Martha considered herself to be a strong and capable young woman, but it hurt to look at the Doctor too long. This wasn't the randy time-and-space traveler she had come to know and, if she was honest with herself, love. This man in front of her was grief-stricken and broken, burdened with so many other thoughts and feelings in the span of a second. Of course, looking at the tarnished library wasn't any help either, and she felt bile on her throat when she flicked her eyes the other way and caught a flash of bright red.

But Gallifrey wasn't his only sorrow, this girl was, too. Whoever she was. The only clue Martha got was a name, and Rose, while not a common name, wasn't uncommon either. Who was she? What did she look like? What made her so special, so unique, and so brilliant that a 900-year-old alien would practically destroy himself over her loss? Martha yearned to ask any of the questions from her mental list, but swallowed them for the time being. She didn't want to send the Doctor into another emotional breakdown.

As her mind wandered, so did her eyes. After a moment she realized that the paper under her was not all in the circle script of the Doctor's language. But then again, English only got her so far where physics were concerned. The few words that popped out at her were phrases like "parallel worlds" and "impossible", even "fabric of reality". Threads of a story that Martha might never uncover.

"Good night, Martha," the Doctor suddenly said, the air of composure finally returning to his voice. It stung her to be dismissed and practically rejected as such, but sitting next to a bloody wall and trying to guess an alien's thoughts wasn't going to help anyone. But as she turned to leave, she heard him whisper, "I'm sorry."

Martha paused. She knew, without even turning around, that the words were meant for another. Someone who the Doctor lost, and doesn't seem to be able to see again. Why? What held him back? Why was he always apologizing for every bloody thing that ever happened to anyone around him? She turned to face the Doctor, even though he was still slouched against the wall. "Doctor."

He didn't speak, and Martha took that as a sign to continue. "Doctor, who was she?" she asked, plowing ahead even as she saw his muscles tense. If she let him speak he would just shut her down. "Where is she? Why can't you see her? Why…why are you sorry?"

The Doctor didn't move, didn't even breath, and Martha was sure that he would remain that way for the rest of time. Then, "She was Rose. Rose Tyler." His right fist clenched on open air. Was he used to something next to him he could grasp? "She's trapped. In a…"

"A parallel world," she supplied for him. She'd heard about them in old science fiction movies, but hadn't thought to ask the Doctor about them. Now she was glad she hadn't.

Another pause. "Yeah. Another world. There was a battle, the Battle of Canary Wharf. Where your cousin was killed." Martha nodded, remembering the event. "We fought but…in the end, Rose was trapped in the other world. The walls were closed. I could barely get a proper good-bye through…" She heard him breathe back what sounded like a sob. "She's fine, though. Got her mum, and her da, and Mickey. She's fine. I'm fine."

Though Martha sensed that he was holding back tears, she needed to know the answer to her last question. "And why are you sorry?"

"Because it was my fault! All my fault." With every word the Doctor's voice rose in volume. She couldn't tell where he stopped talking to her and was instead directing his words towards the wall, or Rose, or anyone. "If I'd been there sooner I could have stopped the ghosts from ever appearing! It was my plan to open the walls between the universes, my plan to send Rose away and save her, thinking I was strong enough to handle losing her. Rassilon, I was stupid! She hadn't been gone five seconds before I was clambering to see her again. And then she appeared and…it should have been me on that side! Not her! I could have sent her away again but I didn't and now we're both suffering for it!"

Despite the Doctor's shouts, Martha surprised herself by her own calm attitude. Because through all those words, she had been listening for certain clues, and she had found them. "Doctor," she said to his pinstriped back, "You said you sent her away, to save her. And then she came back."

From her position, she could only see the back of his neck as he nodded.

"I don't know about you, Doctor, but if a woman's able to cross through the walls of reality just to see her bloke again…well, I doubt some flimsy wall is enough to stop her a second time." Martha tried not to linger on the idea that perhaps she was speaking from personal experience. "I haven't met her, but from what you're telling me Rose Tyler sounds like one determined woman. A determined woman who happens to be in love with a man a universe away. And let me tell you that that is a powerful combination. She'll find a way back. Just you wait."

The Doctor said nothing for a while. Then, after a long silence, "Good night, Martha. And…thank you."

Martha hesitated, wondering if she should go up and give the Doctor a pat on the back or a hug or something, but the TARDIS nudged her mind again, as if to say, it's okay, now. I'll take it from here. Indeed, as soon as Martha left the library and returned to her bedroom she heard the ship's soothing hum once again. Despite her turbulent mind, she fell into a deep sleep. In her dreams she saw a series of white walls, with the same blond woman crashing through them again and again. But the woman always seemed to miss the wall that Martha somehow knew held the Doctor.

In the library, the Doctor had not moved from his position. But as his time sense returned he realized how long he had been awake for. He had told Martha that sleepwalking was to blame, but he knew that he'd been mentally aware of every detail. Down to the last shred of useless paper that had slid through his fingertips. It was better Martha believe that he only had problems while he was asleep, even though he knew that his dreams held far worse terrors than a white wall.

That Wall…he stared up at it, and carefully avoided looking too long at the smear of bloody prints on the concrete.

"Take it away," he heard someone mutter to the TARDIS. Was that his voice? When had it turned so demented and sinister? "Take it away!"

The ship hummed in response, and he stumbled out of the room as quickly as he could. The zero room. Yes, the zero room could help him. He needed all the help he could get.

And Martha…now the Doctor wished he hadn't shown her what he was capable of. Why he needed a companion so much in his life. He promised himself, and her, that he would make her feel more included and vital to his life in the stars. Perhaps a visit to a planet known for excellent health practices? Or maybe the last star of the Klarion system?

Martha walked into the TARDIS kitchen the next morning (or as close to morning as she could get on the time ship) to find a note pinned to the door. In zero room, it read, enjoy the library. One glance and she saw that the ship had managed to clean up the entire library, bookcases and all, so it looked like new again.

And if she ever noticed that the white wall had disappeared overnight, she never mentioned it.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is a missing scene and not an AU. I'm so, so sorry, but everything plays out as it normally would after this point. And yes, in case you are wondering, there will be a Part 2.


End file.
